Transcripts
1. How to Write a Personal Statement for Elite Universities (Trailer): it's personal statement right in time, and you're probably feeling a little bit anxious. You're wondering what the best method to put your best foot forward is, how to get your foot in the door, so to speak, so that you can get that coveted invite to interview. And you're probably thinking, Hey, there's gotta be some sort blueprint or magic bullet I can use to write a great personal statement. Well, if you're thinking about Magic blueprints, then this course is not for you. Because truthfully, there actually isn't a magic blueprint or some secret tools that you can use to write a great personal statement. However, there are a bunch of tips and tricks that many of your peers are not utilizing that are very effective for writing great personal statement or writing off any kind. To be honest on, that's what this course is all about. We're gonna give you some tips and tricks to make sure that you put your best foot forward . When it comes to on your personal statement, we're gonna help you stand out from the crowd. I'm taking the guesswork out of it for you on by the end of this course, you're gonna have a personal statement you can't wait to hand in on. There's gonna be a high chance if you put the work in that you're gonna get that wonderful invite entity. Over the years, I've helped hundreds of students get into the elite university of their dreams. And now I want to help you. I want to give, you know, only the tools and the tips and tricks that I used in my own personal statement to gain admission to Oxford University, where I studied English language and literature in Oriel College. I want to give you the tips and tricks that I've also worked for hundreds of students that I have mental and coached over the years to get into top universities. So if it's your dream to go study institutions like Oxford or Cambridge or Harvard or Yale on, do you really want to do everything in your power to make a great first impression with your personal statement? And this is the course you were taken, the guesswork out of it. We're gonna have some fun along the way, and by the end of it, you're gonna have a fantastic personal saving. If that sounds good to you. I'd like to thank you very much for taking the skill share course with May on. Let's get started.
2. Welcome To Class: Hello and welcome to this class on how to write a great personal statement for elite universities. Before we get to the tips, I'm gonna give you a quick intro. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about May give you a quick run down about what you can expect from the course. I'm gonna tell you what I what I expect from you on, then we'll just plunge right in. The course isn't very long. It's quite sure, actually, but that's because there's no fluff. Personally, I hate courses that are really long and stretched out and padded with fluff on. But I'm not one of those people that thinks time is equated with quality. So for me personally, I just want the hard practical tips do this, don't do that. Get going because that's where the value is. And we want to get you writing. You're gonna be writing something or playing around with something at the end of each module. But yet, firstly, a quick thing about May who I am, why, on my best person to teach you how to write a great personal statement? There's a few reasons. Firstly, I was admitted to Oxford University where I studied English language and literature based on the strength off my own personal statement. Obviously, the interview process really went in my favour as well. There'll be a course out where I give you some advice about how to excel in an interview like that. But I really do think my grades weren't top. They weren't the best grades by any stretch of the imagination. But I knew that I had ultimate control over what I put in my personal statement. Eso. And I think that's what that's what got my foot in the door, basically after a graduate from Oxford. Then I went on and spent a few years consulting with students. Andi. For a long time I had 100% perfect track record. Basically, everybody I consulted with got into their top university off joints just give you an idea of the sort of institutions that my students got into. There were many. They're going toe. Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, M. I T. York, Berkeley Imperial College, Stanford King's College, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Colombia and McGill Warrick and many more. So obviously, 100% track record is extremely rare, but I was very fortunate that the students that I meant it and consulted with already had a strong fighting chance to get into these universities on. Actually, I was very selective myself. I would only work with people who I already thought from the beginning and had a fighting chance. I didn't want to waste my time with people who didn't. Even so, some people, even though they had their grades in order if they didn't have a very strong motivation for their subject Andi also the institution that they were going for I didn't really bother because I thought it would be a waste of time. So I was very I would pre select people based on how passionate and knowledgeable they were about the subject on Do they actually wanted to get into the institution? Not just because it was good or whatever, Obviously. So my track record is gonna drop now because I have I don't know too much about you. I don't know your personal situation. I don't know your grades. I don't like innovation. Eso I can't guarantee anything, But why can't guarantee is if you truly want this and you truly want to go to a top elite university on. Do you have bean immersed in your subject for many years? You're very passionate about If you follow the tips in this course and you put the work in because you have to put the work in this is this is not a short car will just give you a helping hand. Then I can guarantee your chance of getting an invite interview is much better than it would be if you didn't follow the tips in this course. Because what I'm gonna outline is extremely effective. Andi. No, Only that. But your peers are not doing what I'm about to tell you. So you will absolutely stand out from the crowd if you follow what I'm gonna teach you in this course. So you're gonna need a pen and a paper word process. So you're gonna need a quite a bit of time. I recommend you take a couple of weeks of this course, if not, give it as much time as you can afford. Like I said, the actual content like video runtime a short. But you should be spending time with each module. You watch it. I just it take some notes and golf, and it's up to you to do work. OK, so in this course, let's give you a quick run. Now you will learn how to write compellingly about yourself. Andi. That's a skill that can transfer over to any sort of writing. So even though we're learning specifically about how to write personal statements, this is going to come in handy when you want to write a cover letter for a job, for example, or an internship, or you want to sell yourself in some capacity, maybe even not writing. To be honest, if you have face to face public speaking the same principles, definitely a reply. So you're gonna learn how to write compellingly about yourself. You're gonna learn how to gather your ideas effectively so that a lot of people can get really scatterbrained. They don't even know where to start. You know how to do this? How to get everything that's kind of milling around their brain and get it onto paper in a fashion that's actually helpful. That's another thing you're gonna learn. We're gonna get through that you're gonna learn how to highlight your best qualities on first, we're gonna find out what those qualities are. Then we're gonna show you how to emphasize them. You're gonna learn how to write powerful paragraphs. There's a formula, there's a template, and we're gonna get into that. So your paragraphs are gonna be very powerful moving sentences. You're gonna learn how to write some great one lines. One sentence is that if they just stood alone, it would be very impressive. You're going to learn how to write some quality introductions, as you might already know, the introduction off any piece of writing but definitely a personal statement is one of the most important parts of your writing. So we're gonna learn how to nail that. You're gonna learn how to nail your conclusion as well. You want to end on a big, powerful punch, you're gonna learn how to outline effectively. So, to be honest, everything will fall into place if you know how to outline so that you're gonna learn how to edit your work. So that's the difference between you know, a chunk of marble that looks quite impressive. Andi, Statue of David. Basically, we're gonna learn that chip away effectively and reveal a really good piece of work that is ready to hand in Basically on. Ultimately, you are going to learn how to breathe your soul into every single line of your statement you don't have a lot of room to play with. We're not gonna waffle about here. Everything's gonna be top quality on. You're gonna be very proud of what you can accomplish. The class project is to complete your personal statement and be happy with it. That's the important thing. You're gonna be happy with it. You're gonna be proud of it. And you're gonna hand it in the big smiling face. You're not gonna feel nervous like many of your peers will, and you're gonna have a high chance of being invited to interview at the institution off your dreams. So if that sounds good to you and you're ready to commit a little bit of time to get this right and do it properly, I'd like to thank you very much for taking this class with May on and let's get into the first module
3. Who is your audience?: okay, Before we get into, like, the hard practical tips, we're going to start with a little mindset Lesson Beginning is actually the hardest part. Once you've begun, you kind of broke the back of it and you can get into it. But beginning is very, very hard on a lot. People don't know where to stop. Personally, I think always when you're writing something you're communicating in any way. The first place you start is by answering the question. Who is your audience? Who are you writing to? Who are you speaking to? Now? I can guarantee that most of your peers and people who are also writing their personal statements don't begin with this on Many of them won't even consider this throughout the whole process. A lot people would just see the personal statement as kind of like, you know, check box ticking like, Oh, I have to mention this. And then I'm gonna mention this Andi, What people often don't realize or even think about is when we're writing were no writing in a vacuum. We're not writing for some robot or, you know, the person that was going to be fed into a computer and analyzed. He said this. She put this extracurricular Arian, they demonstrated this. We are communicating with another human being, Okay, And that could be really hard when you approach a blank page because the person is not in the room with you. But if you want to get a little bit meta on this before I sat down to do this course, the first thing I thought about, What's who am I talking to you? So I started to think I thought back to when I was 17 and I was writing my personal statement. I thought back to what I was like at that time, like the adolescent version of May or my hopes and dreams and anxieties and fears. And then I took that perspective, plus the perspective off actually having a lot of conversation with people at that age or people who are right in their statement. And I kept that in my mind like a Zai went into this thinking, Well, you're gonna be feeling this way. We're gonna feeling a bit apprehensive. So if my tone right now sounds, you know, informal, yet instructive, I'm hoping it's a bit comforting, like I'm guiding you this is very deliberate. And it springs from the fact that I just know who I'm talking to more or less. I don't know you exactly. But I've got a good impression on D when you're writing or communicating, you should always have in your mind this ideal reader, the ideal person on the other end. So, I mean, this could be very hard, like you're facing the black page. I'm facing a camera. I'm not actually talking to a real person. As you can see here, I've got a bit of a camera set up. It looks a bit strange when we look at it like this, but that's the reality. And I'm just pretending this is you right now s o What do you think are the qualities of the person who's about to read your personal statement? Because we're writing for a specific person here. So let's take a look at a potential profile off someone who might be reading your personal statement. Okay? Your audience, the person who's reading your personal statement, most likely they hold a prestigious position at the university of your choice. They are likely to be a cheater on have the title of doctor before their name. They have spent their lives in academia, and they love and know their subjects. They are likely to be in the top 1% in the entire world in their chosen subjects on. And here's the kicker. They're tired and bored. They sift through thousands of personal statements every single year, and almost all of them sound the same. After I actually enrolled in Oxford and you're in my freshest week, it's quite funny, actually. My tutor for the first year turned out to be the person who read my personal statement. They were the person who interviewed May. They were the person who ultimately had the deciding vote for accepting me into the university and also letting me choose which college I wanted to go to. Because Oxford is built up of many colleges on, I got my first choice for that, which is really so you're talking to somebody who's very academic. We don't know the nuances of their personality. Obviously, people change from time to time. But this is enough to kind of go on Andi, if you want to be like, super creepy and kind of still wish you could even actually find out who the main shooters at three university you're interested in our and you could have a little look. Most of them have a linked in or Facebook page. Andi, if that helps you kind of get acquainted with who this person is. This potential person, remember, we don't know who they are exactly. We just want someone in our mind as well, right then. That's a good idea as well. But once you know, you know, generally. Okay, there, they've got a doctor there. This and they're very, very small. He is the most is one thing that they're bored. OK, so as you can imagine, like, it's very, very hard to sift through the amount off personal statements they get year after year. It's like that in the publishing industry. Why is it so cutthroat on? Why do so many writers complain that they don't even get a formal rejection slip? They just get ignored when they submit their work to a magazine or a publishing house. Because there's something known as a slush pile and slash part means it's just a big mountain of stuff that just isn't very good. Some of it is abysmal. Andi you know, they have the waste their precious time going through that. So this is gonna dictate how you approach this person. A good way to think about it. A little analogy is your at a dinner party. All right. Actually, you probably have quite a few dinner parties at university with your cheaters. I I often went Teoh my tutors actual home, and they would cook and entertain. It was great. But imagine you're at dinner party with this person who you want to impress. There's lots of other people vying for this person's attention. Everybody's trying put their best foot forward. Days are. So, you know, maybe people were a bit drunk. You finally get to talk to them, but you only have three minutes. Wait. Where do you go from there? You're gonna talk about yourself? You know, obviously, at a dinner party, the best thing to do is talk about another person. But what if you have three minutes where you wanted to show who you are to this person really were impressed. This is the mindset we're gonna have going into writing a personal statement. You're gonna know who you're talking to. You You don't have much time and you set to impress. Okay, sudden. That's gonna change and alter the tone of you. So there are whole books written on tone and how to create a different tone when you're right in. But you don't really need to know that we need to know is who you're talking to because you don't talk to everybody the same way you wouldn't talk to your five year old sister the way you talk, Teoh, your best friend, You wouldn't talk to a priest the way you talk to your mum on. Then emotions get in the way as well. Like someone you've had an argument with. Someone you're in love with. Okay, just get the person, and you're in 10 in your mind first, and you're now the time. All right, on then we're going to look at some other tips to make it even tighter. But that's the most important thing. Now, next module, we're gonna look at the mother of all philosophical questions. You're you
4. Who are you?: every time my Uncle Peter used to come over for a family party, he drink a lot of Guinness and it always ask me. And at 567 years old, I was very confused and I'd say I'm Benjamin, Uncle Pia. But really, I think the confusion wasn't so much that my uncle was asking his nephew who he waas the confusion waas in a. In a large part, that question, who are you is a very difficult question. Andi. Personally, I don't know if I could even answer it fully today, and that's after many years of introspection on many years of changes in my life. It's a very, very hard question, especially at a young age, to know how to answer that because, well, Roy, but that's what we have to do right now. So we figured out who your audience is now we're gonna figure out who are you. All right, So what we're gonna do is we break it down a little bit, okay? What we want to start with is crafting a one sentence summary. This is like a type of like a slogan. We're gonna go for something concise. Ah, One sentence summary that you could fit on a business card, for example, or say very quickly. Andi, we're not gonna actually use this in the personal statement. But getting this concise summary of who we are is going to really help direct us when it comes to the brainstorming stage. And then then we'll write something really good. Using what we come up with eso in the previous module, we looked at a little analogy of the dinner party. Another analogy that's quite helpful is that off the elevator pitch, this is something that's very common commonly discussed in Hollywood or the publishing industry. You get into an elevator just as you get in the one person you want to impress the big top dog at the publishing company, or you're the director who you want to give a scream. Later, they step into the elevator, the press upon on you. Stop climbing the you know that lights change and floor numbers change. You don't have very long, but you want to impress them. Where do you start? It's the elevator pitch, and that's what we want to do here with our slocum. You're gonna want to involve other people at this stage. You gonna go to people who know you really well. So friends or family? Andi, I even suggest teachers. I had a I had a few favorite teachers who sussed me out perfectly at school. If you're lucky enough to have some decent teachers who you have a connection with, you're gonna bother them as well on. You're gonna ask people. What qualities do I have to stand out? Okay. Now, the reason we're gonna ask other people is because it could be really hard to put eyes on ourselves. Sometimes we swing between extremes. Either we have a completely idealized version of ourselves that's, like unrealistic or narcissistic or just not true. It's who we wanna be. Or it just isn't doesn't match up to what we actually do in real life or we go the other way and we think we suck. We have no good qualities. No. Whoever love us. Yeah, uh, you know, So we don't want that. We want something that's relatively unbiased, but from people who know and love us. Okay, So you're gonna ask pester people what qualities about me stand out? I remember we're looking for good qualities here, so if your dad says you're a layabout thief or your teacher says You're an obnoxious sex best. Don't put those qualities out. We're looking for good stuff. We want to be selective. So when you're doing this, you are going to I would say, Shoot for five themes to play with. OK, so a theme could be someone who's, you know, charitable Altruistic. Another theme could be somebody who's business minded entrepreneurial. Another thing could be your creative or diligent attention to detail. If you ask enough people, then you'll see that certain themes crop up again and again. And then it is up to you when it comes time. Teoh, pick some things that you like to select. The one stats. Speak about who you really are the best. Andi have the qualities you want to push forward. Once you've asked people what qualities about you stand out, you're gonna do a little bit digging with some personality tests. Personally, I love personality tests. I know a lot of people do because we're talking about our favorite subject, which is us on DSO the ones I would recommend. There's a free personality test at 16 personalities dot com, and that's the Myers Briggs test. It doesn't take too long to get through that, but it will give you a comprehensive report on your qualities on how you're interacting work and family life and so on. Once you've completed the test, you'll receive, like an abbreviation that will tell you well, a little bit of who you are, how you rank on difference spectrums like introversion, neuroticism, that sort of thing. For example, I'm on I n F J A, which stands for introversion, intuition, feeling and judgment. You get like a list of people who also share your same abbreviation. For example, I've got Ghandi and My Luther King Jr on Mandela on my list. The reason why the tests like this are very useful is because it would give you a profile that you can then kind of chop are for use as the basis off your statement a little bit. So my results told me that I'm an introverted dreamer with an innate sense of idealism and morality on a pension for taking action towards my dreams, A Z can see there are some buzz words we can really play with, like idealism, morality, creative, dream up on like, if that sort of stuff, if I think a weight, that is a quality I do want to emphasize. Plus, I have some examples in my head of when I displayed that quality, and it ties into my subjects. Then then we're starting to cook here. All right, we're starting to get some good stuff, Some good ideas that we're gonna use in the person saving. You also get like, a big list of strengths and weaknesses again. You can. You probably already know some of your strengths and weaknesses. But this is a good way to jog your memory and you get the creative juices flowing basically . So we're looking for about five themes to play with. So get your notebook ready on day. Um, come up with some themes that happy with and then we're gonna use this to write a you know , a sentence. I slogan basically about ourselves. When we write in our slogans, you want to avoid save the world generic phrases. Okay, we're looking for multi dimensionality here. You want to be a bit complex, you want to be unique, and you want to be truthful for who you are. That's very important because that's how you stand out is if you can tap into what makes you unique. And often they'll be like a contradiction. There, for example, somebody who's very interested in capitalism and entrepreneurship but is simultaneously philanthropic and charitable. Altruistic. I mean, look at we can argue that that's that. Not necessarily. They're not mutually exclusive. But you know, people are complex and we have things that people go. They don't fit together. And that's what makes you interest in So you don't want to think about Oh, what should I say? You're thinking about who you are, the essence of who you are, truthfully, and don't get too hung up on whether or not you have enough things to say about yourself. Because when I was back right in my own personal statement, I thought, Oh, I'm never gonna get accepted anywhere because I don't have any extra curricular activities around personal statement right in time, all of my peers were suddenly scurrying to get some extra curricular placements. People were, you know, volunteering at the puppy pounds and, like volunteering old people's homes to help and stuff Andi and I thought, Well, if I'm not doing any of that. I am. I really gonna be good enough. But then I talked myself through it, and something struck out to May on this later, this was confirmed when I went to Oxford, talked to tutors and talk to my peers. I said to myself, These elite universities don't want well rounded. Okay? They don't want someone who's like skydiving every other weekend can like shark people with pool and all that sort of stuff. They want someone who's passionate about their subjects. You want to be a master of your subject on Do you want your passion to burn through the page? So I said myself, Hey, as long as my passion burns through on the page, I'll be all right. So I set myself up as because I studied English. I was like a budding right creative, someone who wanted to go into theater on artist, basically, who wanted to set up their whole life s so that everything subservient to art. And that was like the personality that I went for. I didn't spend a lot time talking my extracurriculars. I just wanted to talk about what I was reading and enjoying what I was loving in different aspects of different art forms on, but I knew that would be enough on. Like I said, that was confirmed later, when much was when you Absolutely we we want the elite. We want the world class and we want people that are gonna focus primarily on their subject and get into the top 1%. There's a saying, you know, Jack of all trades is a master of none. Okay, so this is what we're going for here. Must rate. So right now, you know, I've lived a little bit mawr on. Do you know, I have a lot of crazy experiences I could put into my personal statement. But back when I was a teenager, I didn't have anything apart from I read poetry every night. But that was enough. And even today, I would say my personal statement back then, which showed my passion for the subject would easily trump anything I could write today that just detailed all my travels and different things over the last 10 or so years. Universities like Oxford and Cambridge, they want passion not well rounded. So remember that we don't have a lot of time to play with so we're not gonna show off about extracurriculars and stuff. That doesn't matter anyway, unless you can very strongly tire into your subjects where you'll go in, who you are and what you're about. Otherwise. Just dropping random stuff like extra quickly. Activities in isn't the best idea, okay, it has to be connected to your passion, right? And so we're gonna have a little look at some slogans. Here are some example, slogans and themes. I am a protector of justice who lives for intellectual challenges. Now imagine that, as a slogan writes, this is someone who said right, This is the essence of who I am. What do you think that started? Could be studying law. Be studying something else. But this sounds like someone who's studying law on there's a lot toe hang onto here like this protector justice, Intellectual challenges. There's a three themes in one sentence on Do you know to list if you've got three themes in the entirety of your personal statement, your golden. So this something this person here might talk about protection. Is there a story attached that this person might talk about their philosophy about justice on? They're gonna talk about intellectual challenges. Maybe there's a debate story or something like paradigm shattering that's gonna come up. Another example. Slogan. Missy on a citizen of the world who believes that capitalism is ultimately altruistic again . We got buzzwords here. We've got, like, different ideas we can attach onto Citizen of the world capitalism, altruism. So, like, what is this person going to talk? Well, we've got some ideas, but yeah, we already kind of know who this person is on. And there's a very strong imagery here, some big words being thrown out. I'm a born storyteller who continually looks to the past in order to predict and influence the future. Now, come on, that's that's someone who's interested in history. Maybe, but that's really cool, because it's like it's merging history with storytelling. So maybe it's no history. Maybe they're going for English. They could be going to for another subject as well. What would be really cool is if this person was a scientist. Now, you know, I don't know how that how that would work, but you can have a little idea how you know how that would play out. And if that's you, that's yes, and who you are. Brilliant. Let's look at one more. I'm a hopeless idealist who believes that God can be found in the minutia of scientific study. Brilliant is, that is a state. Someone is going for science. But, you know, typically with lots site, it's at least the ones I know identifying as atheist. Getting God in there really is gonna help you stand out from the pack again. You're not thinking or what's gonna help me stand out from the pack. You just get in touch with you, who you are on if you're someone who hey, as quite some you know, a spiritual side to you. But you want to study science. But don't block that off. That's what makes you unique. And if you can talk about that, that's something you can talk about passionately. And it's tighter subject. Oh, we're good. We get some good stuff here. Okay, so next module, we're gonna learn how to dig deep. But first, what I want you to do is go ask other people about your top qualities. What what quality? Stand out. Get like five themes to play with. Try to write a slogan. A self summary don't stretched too much about it doesn't have to be perfect cause we're not gonna put it in the postal saying them. Try and write, you know, 345 I mean, if you can write 10 different ones Great, make a mess. OK, take that. Myers Briggs test at 16 personalities dot com On If you're willing to spend a little bit of cash job, Dr Jordan Peterson has a personality test. It's very good, and that's why I understand myself dot com. I think it's a bit less and $10. I'm not affiliated. But I took the test and I thought it was wonderful. So you might like that as well. Okay, so do that. Have some fun with it. And next we're gonna learn how to make sense of what's going on in our heads. Okay? Seeing him, it
5. How to dig deep: Oh, you again? Welcome back. Did you, uh did you do the personality test? Did you ask some people close to you about things that stood out about you? If no, go do that now or a gay promise that you'll do it after you complete this module and the course. I know some people like to watch something all the way through before they start doing the assignment and stuff. But it's very important that you do this stuff. Don't just think about it, okay? Otherwise, it's not gonna work. Now, what we're gonna do is we're going to dig deep on. But the reason I say dig is it's like an archaeological excavation metaphor. Okay, so our mind there's there's a lot is everything that surface? Okay, but it's a lot beneath the surface. And sometimes we have to work really hard to get beneath the surface where the good stuff is on. So we're going to do some digging. All right, Andi, we're going to spend if you can a couple of weeks at this stage, and that might seem crazy, but really, if you can afford to put a few weeks aside, we're going to spend it at this stage on. Trust me, it's gonna pay off, because what we're going to do is we are going Teoh do a lot of writing every day different , right exercises, and you're going to collect everything, absolutely everything. You are going to fill up a bunch of notebooks. You're gonna put down stories, anecdotes, philosophies, opinions, things that you think about random stuff on. And what we're gonna do is we're not gonna judge any of this, All right? You're gonna make a real mess. Collectors much infers you want, and once it's down there, you'll liberated and you feel free and loose. And then we can we have something to work with. Basically, no one just sits down and writes their personal statement start to finish and enhancing. But some people do do that. And I knew people who did that. None of them did anyone. None of them did very well, and none of them got you invite anywhere. You don't do that. Okay? It's very, very hard, but the same point a lot of your peers will find some sort of midway ground where they'll write something out and then they'll rewrite a few times And of course, something out. Do this and do that. What we're gonna do to stand out on do something a bit different that's gonna put us ahead of the pack is we're going to spend some time just getting comfortable writing and drudging up some ideas. Eso imagine that writing your personal statement is like a strongman contest. You don't just turn up to a strongman contest and press hundreds of pounds above your head . You have to start by working out a little bit every day, building your strength, building your flexibility. Are you conscious? Jumps for into it. So the people who are already quite acquainted with writing in different forms are going to go into the personal statement writing process much better equipped, much less stressed. Andi. More creative, basically eso the people who were going to struggle, the people who already feel like writing is something quite foreign. So that's what we want it. We want to spend a couple of weeks collecting everything you can all the stories of your life or your ideas, opinions that stand out to you. Andi, the thing here is we're not gonna be selective yet, but keep in mind that if you think it Oh, but my life's like Boeri and its mundane. I've not done anything interesting. That's really not the case, because you could compare, let's say, a trip to Peru, where you skydived out of a plane while rescuing Kuala bears at the same time. And you could compare that to just a routine trip to the dentist, where you've got a wisdom teeth removed. Um, now, the Peru story could actually not be very impactful at all. I mean, jumping out the plane. You have been so scared that you kept your eyes closed and just wished Europe home. Watch Netflix or something. Where is that routine trip to the dentist? That girl could have gone in so many directions that could have made you believe in God. It could have changed your perspective on the whole medical community and the whole industry. It could have done so many things that are really interesting internally to you that someone would want to read about. So don't be judgmental. You're just gonna get everything down on paper even if it seems boring to you at first. Okay. On DSO to begin brainstorm in. You're gonna feel a bit stiff of this at the start. So what I suggest is, we do a bunch of exercises, Okay? So in order to dig the we can do something called word association eso That's where you start with some values may be These are values you discovered when writing yourself. Slogan like creativeness, altruism or money, different values and stuff. And then you're gonna take this one word, for example. I've put here analytical. Take this word on. Just follow it on right away. The other words that this word triggers so you can see him, and it doesn't have to make too much sense. The word analytical, you might think lab experiment. And then that might branch off to some other thing we think controlled creativity. Anything could happen. The future is under the microscope, like way confined some stuff that seems a bit silly or, you know, a bit pretentious. But we're not judging here. We're just gonna, you know, take our pencil for a little walk across the page and see what comes up. You could do that with a bunch of stuff. Another one you could do is to make a timeline. So what happened last month. What happened the month before that happened last year? You could go through a calendar on say, oh, weapon May or you could go through. Let's say Facebook, where you've been tagged in fighters, you could go through your photos on your phone. You could already keep a diary. Brilliant. But if not, make a little timeline of stuff that's happened. And that's gonna jog your memory and give you some stuff that you might want to talk about , something that's like, Well, that's quite interested. You know, another one I want you to do is to keep a journal. All right, so you're gonna be keeping one anyway with these other exercises. But actually keep a journal where every day you write down what you're thinking and feeling on bond. What I recommend for this is you pick a time, Andi, every day for the next week or two weeks during this stage, commit to showing up at that time and write in a journal entry on. So I would say 10 to 20 minutes is a good amount of time on it could be in the morning. It could be before you go to bed but make sure you do every day. Put an alarm on your phone or something and just write about you know, things you've done that day. And what you see when you look back is that there are some themes and patterns that continually emerge throughout your life, and this will tell you a bit more about who you are and things that you want to talk about , things that your passion is connected to. Another technique you can do is to pick a word and write in a stream of consciousness style . So you know, if you know Jack Care Act. The writer who wrote on the road, he just wrote that whole book, one long ream of paper through his typewriter on Just Tap Tap, Tap, Tap Tap Taps out without thinking. Sounds crazy, but that's really how you get Teoh the subconscious on You can get to some really cool stuff that's lacking down there, and you could bring up to the surface. Eso what? What I would suggest is like the word association, you pick some big theme and then just right without thinking, Andi, when you do that is, you just move your things across the keyboard and you can take them off. And you might say, Hey, for five minutes, my fingers are gonna keep moving and you might actually not might. You will write gibberish because this is really weird. A lot of people can't just continuously, right, But that's okay if you just right blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday. Chocolate, chocolate chocolate Doesn't matter as long as you keep going. But keep that thing that you write about in your head and something will emerge. The key is to just don't take a pause against set time up on, pick something to write about. So some examples are money. All right, so money is and in for two minutes just right. Okay. Not gonna think too deeply about this. Just get those fingers moving or relationships are family is And then you're gonna think some other words are gonna come into your head fighting, cherishing, holding something like that you could talk about art are is and it's go. Don't think too much. What can you write about our without moving? You'll come up with something. Passion, hard work. So these are just some buzz words. I'm throwing out to you. But every day, maybe you'll think of something a bit different. You might think about something related to your subject. So it might. You could get really specific. Like if you study in architecture, you might say Gowdy years studying our darling is. But so play around with that. Get comfortable that on another tip that I think is really good. This is one I got from a man called James Altitude Thing is to make top 10 lists about anything. Really, I used to do this. I did this. I had us like a really good streak of writing a top 10 list every single day for about six months. And it was probably the most creative period off my life, basically, and I just write these nonsense lists like Top 10 favorite foods and why top 10 Things I learned from Grandpa. Top 10 countries I want to visit and why even I did one like top 10 ways. Dogs better than cats. It sounds so silly. But if you do this with in conjunction with, like a journal and stuff like that, you get so many ideas you don't even know what to do with, um, basically on bond. The reason 10 is good because 10 stretches you. Anyone can do like a list of three list of four. But if you force yourself to get to a list of 10 then that means you're not judging what you're putting down because you can't judge yourself on the The aim isn't to be perfect. With everything on the list, the aim is just to get a list of 10 and that's another way to get into the subconscious and get some gold and stuff. Eso. It's important that you spend a lot time writing getting comfortable with writing on just getting a lot off stuff down on paper for a little while, the more that you can get down on paper them or you can play with, so it's very important. So what you gonna do now is you can say goodbye to me for a couple weeks and just go play with that or you can run through the rest. Of course, if you really think that's gonna be helpful, but promise that you will actually spend as much time as possible digging okay, but I would highly recommend you just go away. New starts keeping your diary now and you start doing writing exercises or, you know, do some things writing exercises right now. Spend some time, maybe put some nice music on or something you can watch next module if you want. But then make sure that tomorrow you wake up, you do some more writing exercises, and in the next day, you do some more. Give yourself a generous amount of time for this. Okay, on. I'll see you in a bit.
6. How to make sense of the chaos: welcome back. So did you spend a couple of weeks of the previous stage? Are you returning after a couple of weeks, or did you be a bit naughty and skip ahead? Um, well, only you can judge. So if you did spend some time and you've been writing consistently well done for you and you probably feel quite loose and limber and ready to get going, you feel like you've oil your engine on. If you haven't done that, shame on you. Go do that. Or do after you've watched this, eh? So what we're gonna do now is make sense of the chaos on Does it really art in making sense of chaos? What we want to do now is to select three stories or maybe five ideas that have a pattern running through them. So even something as simple as writing a diary entry every day. You're gonna find some things that speak to you more than others. There'll be a lot of mess, but if you go through your work and stuff, it's not putting a big star next to stuff that really stands out or circle something that really speaks your he thinks really important. we're gonna whittle it down to yeah, 3 to 5 you could play with. If you select five, you whittle it down again. Maybe 23 If you can't cut it down that far, then you know, look, we'll look at how we can merge a couple of things. You might put one pattern connected to another. Either way, we are going to start being a bit more selective and the way you'll know if a story or philosophy or an idea or anecdote is worth including is if you feel it in your gut. All right, so if you feel it in your body, if you get like a response where it's like what I can't not say this, then that's a good sign. The ones that you just scan over, even the ones that you think if you look at something and you think logically Oh, this is good, but it's all logic. There's no emotion there. It's probably not as good as you think. So we want to go for something that's a visceral that it's like a nice, strong response from you, because if you're passionate about and you can talk about it with passion, then you arouse that passion in the reader, and that's what this is all about. So to make sense of the chaos, there's a couple of techniques on the ones that I like the best, and I think work the best. The 1st 1 is the extended metaphor technique. Okay, so an extended metaphor is where you take a medical, and then you apply it consistently all the way through your work. So some higher some examples of a metaphor. Oh, journey. So the extended metaphor over journey is a very popular one, and it's very effective. Another one. I'm just thinking spitballing Randomly year. You could use theme metaphor off a solar system or a tapestry would warming when I talk about extended metaphor. Basically, what I mean is, you take your end goal so you want to be a rocket scientist. You want to be a world class pianist. You want to be a proctologist, the best stand proctologist anybody's ever seen. This is your end goal, Andi. You encapsulate that or you envision that as a journey on. That's your end destination. Your dream is your in destination. Andi, you've been journey in a little bit. When did your journey start. There was some moment back sparked in your mind. We thought I really want to do that thing. That's the beginning of your journey. And you kind of halfway there will no, even halfway. Andi stories that you include in your personal statement are kind of like stops along the way on your journey. So what happens on a journey in something? Maybe your car breaks down, Give us an obstacle. Was there a time where? Okay, you want to be a lawyer? Was there a time where you thought, even though that's your being your passion for many, many years, I just can't do it. You start doubting yourself. But then you came back stronger. Something came in where? Where? That said, no. You want to be a lawyer, But maybe you don't want to be this kind of lawyer. You don't want to be a trial lawyer, but you want to be this incarnation of a lawyer. So that's a journey. Okay, you're gonna take the stories that mean the most year on the thread that's running through them is your on a journey to the final destination again, like just being random solar system met for just I just thought about that top of my head, but different stories or patterns that you want to, including a personal statement, could be different points in the night. Sky. Sounds a bit crazy. Could work thetacticsroom metaphor. Be pretty cool for someone going into the humanities type subjects like English. If you see your life for your dream as a work of art, Tapestry has different points on it as well. Different brush strokes. What we're doing here is we're just imposing a largest structure to make the personal statements seem a bit less random. So instead of saying I like this and then I like this, I want to do this this big theme imposed here so it makes it seem very cohesive. Reading breeds much better if there's a general theme that supplied all the way through. So one way you could do that is with the extended medical Now. Extended metaphor might not work for everybody, and it might not be best for you. You might not fit, so what you could do instead is to use a technique called the persona technique. So this is where you adopt a persona, so some examples be in citizen of the world. So, like someone who's going to study business or somebody who's studying abroad might think, Hey, I'm a citizen of the world. I'm I'm international, Andi. If you confined three stories or ideas or themes that you're gonna that's gonna comprise the bulk of your personal statement, and if they all fit with that persona, then you're on a winning parts with that one. Another persona story toe Okay, Protector of justice, which we saw in the slogan writing examples. The storyteller persona was the one that I adopted when I was writing my personal statement back when I was a teenager, I actually thought that I would be a performer in some capacity on actor in the theater, but I saw that as a part of being a storyteller on my personal statement, talked about well, what I was reading related to that basically my ideas about the Stanislavski method acting technique. I talked about how Marlon Brando and James Dean could be very poetic, with their facial expressions and their movements and their voice tones. Andi, I tied this all back into this persona of me being a storyteller, basically, for example. Okay, just so you choose the citizen of the world persona well, you could select three or four stories that show basically your business potential. But how that integrates into other cultures. So maybe there's one story you really want to talk about, and that's when your grandpa brought you in on a business meeting. Or maybe someone showed you a map of the world and told you that business is a way to access all these different countries. The's themes. They have overlap. They have a corn thread and they fit a nice persona. You could. If you want to be really strong, you could go for both. I mean, that's hard. But if you can get an extended metaphor on a strong persona in, you have a nice personal statement cooking. Basically, if you're if you're really struggling, you might want to look at the selection criteria for your subject. Okay, So, like, I just put an example here, which is the Medicine section criteria and that will tell you different personality traits that might work well for you. If you want to study subject now, the danger with this is it can end up making you sound generic or not unique. So you gotta be careful with this. Maybe only use it to jog your memory. Ultimately, if you see a section criteria that does speak to you, you want to figure out how your passion sets you apart from ALS, the other passionate individuals. So your passion is gonna be key. OK, we could look quickly at my first line. For my personal statement, you can get like, an idea of where I was coming from. So my first line and we don't have to analyze if this is good or not, because personally, looking back on it now, I think it's really pretentious. But yes, my first line was that the Nietzschean philosophy of aesthetics posits that there is a duality in art between the Apollonian and dynasty and impulses you get. Who cares what it means? Okay, if you don't do English, we don't do philosophy, won't know what any of that means. It's very specific. It's using some real technical language on that most people wouldn't understand, but the reason I chose that is because it fit my storyteller persona. So we're talking about our Andi. We're talking about a very certain branch off our Andi. I started this because I knew firstly, I knew at my age, not many people are gonna be reading nature. Not many people. We're gonna be talking about Apollonian and Dionysian dualities. What that means is Napaloni inform is basically form itself. So, like sculpture has a form on the Dionysian is formless nous drunkenness. Music is an art form is Dionysian. So what I was very interested in it was the merging of the two in regards to like film. So I talked about that in my statement, but s so you can see here that I'm I'm setting myself out as a storyteller or someone who's preoccupied with art right from the get go. That's what I did. But if you're an aspiring medic, for example, you might decide to begin your personal statement with a discussion about why you know why you wanted to be a doctor. Maybe there was some like footnote in Gray's anatomy that you're reading and that's really interesting. Or maybe while all your friends were playing outside, you were watching scrubs on like picking out a with the unique Chrissy's and stuff like that s so the key here is to pick stories and themes that reinforce this image that you want. Try and think of an extended metaphor that will go through them. So that's your homework. Now lets you quick assignment is to pick a few things that absolutely have to go in your personal statement a couple of blocks and then put a threat through them. Can you put an extended metaphor through them like a journey? If no. Can you come up with a persona that fits? Try and go for both. But don't worry if you can't, but that's a good exercise on. That is how we are going to make sense of the chaos on Don't worry, it's not perfect because it doesn't need to be perfect yet. But in the next morning we are going to learn how to outline. So get working on. I'll see then
7. How to outline: Okay, now I'm gonna show you The best way to outline on outlining is very, very important. It's one of the first things, actually, is the first thing you should do you before you put any words down on paper, you already done the brainstorm in, but that's not enough. We're not going to just write. Start to fish because you won't get anything good. You have to outline first and you'll be a lot more confident going in. So this is how I outline. And this is how I recommend anyone outlines not just a local statement, but anything you want to write on. This is an outline that I is now become unconscious, but now I apply it to everything I write articles, whatever any form of communication. Andi Thistle is going to seem very basic, and you've probably already heard it before. You probably heard it in secondary school or high school English, but for me, when I first heard it, it sounded so simple that I just disregarded it and I tried to do all these advanced techniques, structural techniques, different word choices and stuff to compensate above that I'm better than that. But it wasn't until actually my final year at Oxford University that I realized the importance off this structure. I my mental, who was helping me go through my dissertation every week. He would say to May Ben, you are not paying all of your work. Andi. Now, when we talk about peeing, I don't mean that you defying your work with urination. What I mean is P is an acronym that helps you remember how to write. So P stands for points. Example explanation. And that is how you write anything. You make a point, you give an example and you back it up with an explanation on DSO I'd meet with my mental. I gave him some stuffed I'd written, like a paragraph or something. Andi said right. How can we do this so that you peed on your work so we would rework wife for it, and we made it fit this woman appoint example explanation where you made it fit tightly on instantly. It was always much, much, much better. So this is a very basic technique, but it's by master in the basics that you become a master basically. So what you gonna do? Okay? Your structure, your outline is gonna work like this. What I always do is I get a piece of paper and I write introduction and then main paragraph one, Main paragraph two, Main paragraph three, conclusion and then this is a template that you're gonna fill in. Eso your introduction is, you know, that's your opening paragraph, and it's typically going to consist off 3 to 4 sentences. You should be careful, right in much more than that, because you don't have a lot of time to play with Andi. Really? The purpose of the introduction is to launch the reader into the body into to make your theme clear on you don't have room toe waffle again. You want to be concise and precise on. Then when you get into humane paragraphs, you will structure. So that's why do I write on my piece of paper in paragraph one point example explanation, and you're gonna fill it in. What's your point? Where is the example to back up? What's the explanation? What's the elaboration? So the main paragraphs you know, you might have 4 to 6 sentences may be a bit longer. Bit sure depends how long sentences up on you're gonna construct these paragraphs and also gonna construct interim conclusion this way as well. But you're gonna definitely constructed paragraphs. Why? Given a point Example Explosion, Your main paragraphs should be like a mini essay in themselves. Each paragraph should have an introduction sentence, a body, and a conclusion on each paragraph needs to link toe what came before it and lead into what's gonna come after on the new conclusion. That's gonna be the same length as your introduction roughly, and it will tie everything together. But we're gonna look specifically at this stuff in more depth shortly. All you have to do now, we're not gonna get too deep until we get to the next module. But what you gonna do now is you're going to pick your three main parallels. You might have four. OK, that's OK. But say limit yourself to run three main paragraphs and you're gonna put your theme or the governing idea that's gonna consist in that paragraph, then your next one, then you next one and see it down on paper puts. You know what you're gonna talk about in this paragraph? Now it might be a childhood story and then put what you gonna talk about the next paragraph ? It might be a philosophical idea that you have. As for the insurance conclusion, we could be a bit rough at the moment because sometimes it's good to leave those to last. But with you outline, make sure you know what those paragraphs are gonna be A what? You see on paper, you can start playing around and you can start seeing things like the metaphor. Where does that fit in? Or the persona? Where does that fit in? So that's what you gonna do. Get your outline done. Once you've done an outline of months, we've learned how to write an intro and main paragraph and stuff. Your first draft is gonna be written very, very fast on. He's just gonna just gonna go for it, really? On After that, we're gonna tidy up in the editing process. Eso find out what is going to be in your three main paragraphs on in the next model. We are going to get into how to write an introduction
8. How to write an introduction: Okay, so now we're gonna look at how to write an introduction. Andi, there's a lot off stuff going on in a good introduction, so it could be a bit complicated to think about, but what we're gonna do is we're gonna break it all down. I'm gonna give you the main points you want to hit on when it comes to write a new introduction, Andi, to take away the abstract nature of this a little bit. What we're gonna do is we're going to look at an example introduction from a fictional candidate. Theis, fictional candidate is an overseas student. He's applying to study something like business or some international relations, something along those lines. And he's looking to study abroad. So his persona is going to be that off a citizen of the world like we kind of discussed in previous module. So I keep talking about P e, which is point example explanation. And now I'm going to follow my own advice by telling you exactly what you should do in your introduction. I'm gonna give you a point. You're gonna look at the example, and then we're gonna riff on it a little bit going to the explanation of why, and you'll see that that's a very effective structure to set up any sort of communication that you want to do. So what we're gonna do first is just a bird's eye picture. We're gonna go through the points that you should hit on any introduction. Then we're gonna look at the example. Then we're gonna go back to the points again, so that should reinforce it in your mind. It doesn't matter what you understand. It's more about what you can take away and what you can remember. So this is a good way to remember what you need to know quite easily. And then once we've looked at the fictional candidates example introduction, We're gonna look at some really introductions by people who actually were accepted into Oxford University. We're going to look at a ah biochemistry student. We're gonna look at his or her introduction on what they did. And, you know, we can see the stuff I want you to hit on in their opening on. We're also going to look at someone who applied and was accepted to study medicine. Oxford. You know, actually, I don't really recommend looking examples too much because you don't want to solve. There's some sort of analysis paralysis that goes on. You can overthink things a bit too much when you're looking at what other people do it. When it comes to examples, you just want toe. Look, at example because of what it can teach you like the points I'm gonna tell you You need to include and then you get into applying it to your own work so you don't want I don't want to drown yourself in examples. You just want them to do their job, which is demonstrate what you need to do in your work. OK, so Birdseye picture, let's go through real quick how to write an introduction. So the first sentence is going to get right to the point you're going to use point example explanation. In your introduction, you're going to set out what your mission is. Okay, we're gonna go into exactly how you can do that. In a second, you're gonna be conscious off word connotations. A case of what do when you use a certain word. What does it suggest to the reader? Like what images and ideas are aroused in their mind. okay. When you use a word, many words are loaded with meanings. Okay. So weaken choose words quite precisely to give a desired effect. Yeah, we're gonna choose words that emphasize qualities that you wish to project in your personal statement, we're gonna be writing in. The active voice will go into what that looks like in a minute. But suffice to say, it means you're right. Sentences like the boy hit the ball, Not the ball was hit by the boy. We're gonna We're gonna look at why you shouldn't immediately begin with a quote. You might want to, but we'll talk about way. Shouldn't in a sec. In your introduction, you're gonna show, not tell. You're gonna demonstrate on dure. Gonna be powerful through subtlety. You're gonna very your sentence length. We're gonna look at the rule of three accidents and alliteration on visual language. Okay, on. Then we're gonna end on a sentence. That raises a question that begs an answer. All right, on, if you're struggling, right, you just want to think about your introduction right now, But really, a lot of people will leave the introduction toe last. Your first sentence is probably along with the last sentence. The most important part of your personal statement. Obviously, everything's very important. But if you have to spend time disproportionately on one part of your personal statement, I would suggest you spend a lot of time making sure that first sentence really hooks the reader. So when you're spending a lot of time on just one aspect, you're probably not gonna nail it until probably the very end. Okay, so you're gonna get the whole person statement down and you'll still be tweaking the intro on the conclusion All the way until you finished. Let's look practical how these tips manifest themselves in this fictional example. Candidates introduction. All right, so let's read this together, Okay? Multiple experiences in my developing years blessed me with the discovery that I am a world citizen. The core belief of Buddhism is that the whole ocean is contained in one drop. I believe this with all of my heart identifying as one particular race, creed or color impedes the development of human civilization is my ambition to see what unites humanity and provide solutions to problems that plagued mankind as a whole. This is an example of an introduction that If you have all your other background fundamentals like test schools covered, we'll get you an invite to an interview that most elite institutions. This sort of introduction doesn't just come out in one go. This is an example of a piece of work that's Bean reworked many, many times so that it hits on the point. Start. I'm gonna teach you now. So let's analyze what's going on here. So let's look about first sentence, okay? Because that first sentence gets right to the point. You know exactly what this candidate is going to discuss. You also know something about this candidate before reading any further. Okay, multiple experiences in my developing years blessed me with the discovery that I am a world citizen, has got right to the point. What's the point? I'm a world citizen, but it's telling you a little bit more about the candidate, and it gives you a little preview of what's to come basically. Okay, so we know that's the past. This candidates past has been instrumental to who yesterday and where he's going, okay, and so that's a very good structure to follow. Generally in your personal statement. Okay, your personal statements all about who you are. Now, where you're going, you're gonna probably end on where you're going. But throughout the personal statement, you're gonna outline things that have made you who you are OK on. It's gonna be completely relevant to what you're studying, obviously, but yeah, so he gets right to the point. And in just that one line, we already know so much about this candidate. It's There's so much information there if you just break it down a little bit now, obviously someone reading your personal statement like a tutor or admissions officer is not going to analyze this very closely because they don't have the time. But there's a lot of stuff that's gonna be thrown up in their mind whether they like it or not with this sort of thing, So they'll be reading quickly. But you've got their interests because you're telling them so much already. Okay, Multiple experiences in my developing years blessed me with the discovery. So look at that word. Blessed. All right. So what do you know about this candidate? Just from that choice of word? We know that he has a mind set off gratitude, probably because blessed gets that across. Blessed has connotations off religion, but also thankfulness, spirituality. It ends on that big punch. Okay, It ends on I am a world citizen. So a lot of candidates who haven't put too much thought into how they're gonna do the personal statement, they might just begin. I'm a world citizen. Okay, fair enough That gets right to the point. But it's that is very on the nose. This way. You've got the point. Andan example All wrapped up in the same sentence. I am a world citizen because of these multiple experiences in my developing years so we can see someone who wants to start the business. You know, this is a great persona toe have. This is it kind of sets this person apart from the pack a little bit because this person's entrepreneurial, their business minded. But they're going down that avenue because they want to make a change in the world. So we're coupling, you know, entrepreneurship with philanthropy. Perhaps almost who knows already were asking questions. Okay, notice how the sentences written. All right? It's powerful, actually exudes power. Andi, That's because it's written in something called the active voice. All right, so There's an active voice and there's a passive voice. So it's written using the active voice. Okay, so there's look at OK. Multiple experiences in my development years blessed me to give you an example of what the passive looks like. Instead of saying Blessed me, which is active, you would say I was blessed and you know what? So you might think hate? I was blessed is you know, a bit more normal sounding, which is true because you're probably if you've ever heard the word blessed in conversation , you're probably more likely to hear someone say I was blessed. Then something. Something blessed May. The reason for that is, you know, many fold. We can get into it. But ultimately, when people use the passive voice, it's because they're relatively unsure of their words. It's it's a hedging its week. It's some un offensive. Unobtrusive, using the passive voice basically just gets your message under more generally on. You know, that's great. You know, day to day situations, whatever. You don't want to cause offence if you have a strong opinion, but we don't have a lot of time to play with. We don't have a lot of space in your personal statement, and we want our We want our point to be strong and to stand out on the best way to do that . Mr. Start using active voice as much as you can on that's going to stand out because most people in the personal statements are going to be using passive voice a lot because they're nervous. They don't think they've got anything to offer. The university, you know, they haven't got a lot of experience on this translates to them being unsure of themselves , like who admire to be so active and powerful when I'm just such and such. That might be true, but we're not gonna write like that because you're just going to blend in active voice. Let's look at the second sentence. Okay, so the core belief off Buddhism is that the whole ocean is contained in one drop. Now, what's interesting with this? Okay, where this guy's attaching himself to a tenet of Buddhism's? That's already, you know. He's elaborating upon the ideas he's already kind of hit on in the first sentence, like the gratitude. Now he's attachments off the Buddhism, which is spiritual. Andi, He's gone for a religion that's renowned for being very peaceful. Andi focusing on a collectivist mindset rather than an individualistic mindset, the whole ocean is contained in a single drop. The reason I like that is because that's very subtle. If you want to hear um, or obnoxious way off saying the same thing, this guy, a girl could have just said, You know, I work well in teams or, you know, I'm a team player. I always put others before May. You wouldn't believe how many people right in their personal saving, write stuff like that. I work really well in teams. I'm a real team player because and they might do everything right with the point example explanation. But that's so the people reading a personal statement are gonna read that over and over and over again. And it is just so box standard, and it's so boring. So let's get the qualities you want to emphasize. And let's get um, into the reader's head in a really unique way. That's what I mean when I say show, don't tell right subtlety carries power. Now you really think I'm a bit of a hypocrite because one moment I'm saying you want to be on the nose and you want to be active and powerful, and the next I'm saying, Be subtle, but there's a time and a place for being active, and there's a time for being subtle. So subtlety when it comes to emphasize inequalities that is a form of power because you're going to stand out and it looks like you're more of a storyteller. You've got more of a way of words with you when it comes to being powerful. You want do that on a lexical or a word level a sentence level When it comes to actually put in ideas in the reader's mind, let's be subtle about it. Strong imagery, for example, ocean, you know, the whole ocean contained in a single drop. That's a pretty strong image. Everybody knows what you're talking about. This guy or girl is quite a thinker, like has a lot off philosophy floating around their brain. And that's better than saying I like to read philosophy. Show it what? Pick something that has to, you know, stood up to you from all the philosophy of Red. Another thing I like about this is this could so easily be a direct quote on. A lot of people love their direct quotes. For example, John Dunn said that no man is an island. No man is an island. Okay, there's nothing wrong with that, I guess. But just like people using the passive voice in their personal statements or writing, generally people are gonna be using quotes a lot on bond. It's not unique. Ah, lot of people were even begin on a quote. They'll begin their very first sentence on a quote. End on a quote, Throw a quote in the middle on to me and anyone reading your paper. If you're using the words of someone else, it sounds like you're not sure of your own words or your own philosophy, your own belief system. So sure, you know, make a reference to something you've read in a book, something someone you respect, us said. But paraphrase it, so that means you're not gonna put a direct quote. You're gonna put it in your own words on it sounds like you've digested what you've read or experienced or heard more thoroughly because he put it into our own language. Another tip. This is a structural tip is for you. to not be afraid to mix up the sentence length. Okay, so a long sentence, followed by a short sentence or two short sentences followed by a long sentence is quite pleasurable. If you have a sentence, that's four words. That's very direct, very strong. Maybe have another one following. That's only 45 words, six words and then you have maybe a three word sentence, four word sentence and then a longer one and then go back. That's the musicality of the language. That's another way to hold the reader's attention. We want to hold the reader's attention, not just what we say, but how we say another way we can do that is by utilising a technique called the Rule of Three. All right, so if we look back at this example, we can see identifying as one particular race. Creed or color impedes the development of human civilization, race, creed or color, that is, the rule of three basically means you're just making a little list. It's not, too. It's not for its the rule of three, and for some reason there's actual psychological studies on this. The human brain loves patterns of three. They really stand out bomb, bomb, bomb something musical about it. So my suggestion for you is if you want your the sound of your personal second, to stand out a little bit more, try and get the rule of three in once or twice. You don't overdo it. You don't want to every other sentence. But maybe you're gonna put it in your introduction because you want the readers ears to perk up in your introduction, maybe doing your conclusion as well because that's another way to end on a bang. We want to attack this on all fronts on two main fronts are what you're saying. How you say it. Yes, you could get away with you know what you're saying, being enough on its own, you probably couldn't get away with just how you say, because if you say nothing but it sounds good, that won't fly. But if you have a strong what the how a good elegant how is going to enhance it some more? And then let's look at the final line. Is my ambition strong? Getting right to the point. No waffling on. By the way, here's a technique to find out if your waffling show what you've written to someone close to you and say, Am I waffling? Be brutally honest. And in Austin, where did you shut down? Where did you turn off? Ask other people and you will get your very quickly if you tell them. Don't hold any bar. You know. Don't hold any punches. You find out if your waffling a lot, we don't want that. So he is my ambition. Just be straight. Tell tell the person what's your ambition? This is who I am and this is what I want. All right is my ambition to see what unites humanity and provide solutions to problems that plagued mankind as a whole. Right. So what's great about this line is it ties up everything this person has just written about . Not only does it tie together all the proceeding sentences, but it leaves us with a question or multiple questions. Really? So in just five lines, we already know quite about this person, but we want to know more. Okay, so what? What questions are we left with here? What needs an answer? Problems that plagued mankind as a whole. So what are these problems? That's probably one of the questions you're thinking. Yeah, I can think of lows of problems off the top of my head. But what are you talking about? A 19 at this person wants to provide solutions to these problems. How you gonna provide solutions? Like, who are you? What do you think is so good about you that you're gonna be able to provide solutions? It's a great way to end an introduction because it leaves you with a question. OK, so when you're right in your introduction, look at the last line in your instruction right before you head into the main paragraph. What question are you leaving on the table? Ideally, if you could get two questions hanging in the air, you're good to go. You know, were very curious creatures, so we can't stand. Have a question unanswered. You doesn't have to be like an actual question mark, but end on something that makes someone go. Okay. What's this person going to say? Next quick recap. The first sentence gets right to the point you're going to use point. Example explanation. Make a point, given example Elaborate. What is your mission? This is what we're all about here. Don't try and reinvent them were or, you know, go crazy to do something kooky. What's your mission? That's exactly what you're gonna do in your introduction. And you can say, just like this person is My mission is my ambition is my hope. It's my dream. It is my purpose. These are words you can and should use in your introduction Strong. Okay, Have a direction that you want to go in your life on this subject that you're gonna study is your vehicle to get that. But what's your mission? Be conscious off word connotations. All right, Pick your words very carefully. If you say blessed, you better be following up with, you know, something that references Buddhism or something like that. Every word is gonna have a connotation that can tie into who you are and what you're all about. Basically so choose words that emphasize qualities you wish to project right in the active voice. No passive stuff on when you go through an idiot. The end. We are going to weed out the passive stuff. That's, you know, number one on your checklist. Active. Don't begin with a quote you can put a cot in, but I would prefer you. To paraphrase if you're gonna do that, put it in your own words. Make it unique to you. Definitely. Don't begin with a quote on if you have to do. Don't begin with a direct quote. My advice show. Don't tell. All right? You a team player? Well, how can you show that? I don't want to say I am a team player. How can you show it? Very your sentence length. Short, short, long or long? Short your whatever Play around with it. There's no good answer to this. And you'll find out what sounds good once you read it aloud, right. We're gonna get a rule of three in there. If you just want me to be prescriptive that I'm gonna tell you right now. Get a rule of three. In your introduction. It's gonna be active, and you're gonna get a role of three. And you're gonna get your mission in visual language. All right, so how much more visual can you get then? Ocean? Drop Your visual is gonna be different. But think you want to put a picture in the reader's mind? We love pictures. Don't be abstract visual. Even if something is abstract, like talking about collectivism. It's really abstract, but make it visual end on a sentence. That raises a question that begs an answer. If we had to just distill it down really quickly, get to the point people of your work. Make sure your missions in there end on a sentence. That raises a question that begs an answer. If this is all too much, do my tip is to leave the introduction to the end. Get Okay, So now we're gonna look at some real introductions from people who were accepted into the University of Oxford. So this is the introduction for someone who is applying to study biochemistry. I picked this and the medicine one just because I knew that they had been accepted. So I haven't properly looked to the yet. So I'm gonna do some live analysis on. We can see where the points of recommended shine through in these personal statements. So let's do it together. As we read through. Think about where the techniques are cropping up for yourself as well. In the sciences, every answer raises a new question. The field is one of infinite possibility, and this is what most attracts me to it. Studying biochemistry would allow me to understand in detail the complexity of life on how different systems within it interact. To me, it explains the beauty of life, how it can be broken down into various chemical reactions. On By studying the chemical composition and structure off separate biological molecules, I hope to gain a more cohesive understanding of life. What do you think? So if you paid attention just now, then you probably already seen the big ones. Okay, So firstly, this person's mission is laid out pretty strong here. Okay? The field is one of infinite possibility, and this is what most attracted to it. It is very direct. It's just saying this is what attracted me to it. No faffing about, OK, now you can see at the end, I hope to gain a more cohesive understanding of life. That's strong. I hope that's very strong, followed by what this person hopes for a more cohesive understanding of life. Not only that, but this raises a lot of interesting questions, doesn't it? What is this person going to talk about next? So this person is talking about the beauty of life, but how it could be broken down into chemical reactions. So I'd be very intrigued to see some examples I would imagine. This person went on to put some examples in the body off the personal statement that showed exactly that. We know what their mission is on. They're not faffing around. Point example explanation. If re sentence more or less ends with a question being backed, this person that this is very crafty. Actually, they actually begin by saying every answer raises a new question. Which sets up a brilliant way to write your personal personal salmon or any writing question. Answer, question. Answer. Well, here's your answer. But now this. We've got a question here. Very nice. Okay, so another thing that stands out to me is the sentence length. The first sentence is very pithy. It's like a thesis statement right in the sciences. Every answer raises a new question. Sure powerful. Then the next one's a little bit longer. The field is one of infinite possibility on this is what most attracts meteo. So this person is used the word on the compound word, so some choices have been made here, so this person could have split this into two sentences. This field is one of infinite possibility. Stop. This is what most attracted to it all depends when you read out what? What's gonna sound better. But I think it's really nice that each sentence is getting longer and longer. Then the next one studying biochemistry would allow me to understand in detail the complexity of life on how different systems within interact. So each one gets more, more long and you can see that even with the final one with the commerce to me, I mean, I'm reading too much into it. Nobody is going to be read in this. Thats analytically. But this sort of thing does have an effect in the background. So this person is talking about complexity starts off shore, gets a bit longer, more complex, gets a bit more longer. Still, these things do you have a very it's on effect that's not so intangible. But it works on the subconscious. And that's what good writing does. So yet perfect, you know, take this introduction if you want tear it apart a little bit on. Do you know you could even once you've written yours, hold yours up against this and see you know is your mission of strong is this person, this person who was admitted to the top university that they wanted to go into? Let's look at another one like this is an introduction for someone who wants to study medicine. Choosing to study medicine is not a decision I have taken lightly. It isn't a career I have wanted to do since a particularly young age. Nor did a life changing event prompt my choice. I have thought very long and hard before deciding to apply. This is wonderful. I really like this. Firstly, it begins powerfully choosing verb present tense. That's very strong. Now. The interesting thing here is this person has a lot of negation in their opening. It's not a decision I've taken lightly. It isn't a career I've wanted to do, nor did something something, something. This is a nice pattern, and it's kind of rule of three. It's like negative negative. Positive is not. This is not. This is this Now I think the reason this person has changed taken this approach is because probably a lot people going into medicine. It's a vocational career, isn't it? So a lot of people, probably will begin and say, This is something I've wanted to do ever since I was little when I saw my grandmother in the hospital when I wanted to do this. But this person wants to flip the script a little bit, you know? Wants to be a bit less cliche, which stands out Okay, So that's another thing you can do when you're writing a song as its congruent to your story and who you are and what you want to do. Think. Is this something that a lot of people would be saying? If so, how can I say in a different way? Once again, we also get a lot of questions raised. OK, so it isn't the career I've wanted to do since a particularly young age and all did a life changing event prompt my choice? Well, now we're asking, Well, why do you want to do this? And then you're hit with the real big punch. I have thought very long and hard before deciding to apply. So there was no life changing event, and you haven't always wanted to do it. But you thought long heart. So what conclusion have you come to? Where did this desire come from. We have so many questions that we want the answers to. Of course, now when you look at these examples, you'll see that they haven't done everything that I've suggested. What I've suggested is, you know, it's a it's a checklist. Basically, if you're struggling on, you, don't have to get everything that I have suggested into it. But, you know, hit on the main points. Thats person hasn't used flowery language or anything like that, but it stands out. You know, this person's mission is very direct. There's no waffling on your left with a question, and ultimately, that's really what you want to do. So what I want you to do now you don't have to write your introduction, but what I do want you to do is to think off potential things that could go in your introduction. Ultimately, I'm asking you, what is your mission on? May be. Think of a few questions you could leave unanswered, begged the reader's curiosity. So have a little think. Andi Next module. We're gonna learn how to write a main paragraph, seeing a bit
9. How to write a main paragraph: Okay, so now we're gonna look at how to write a main paragraph. Andi, What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make this real simple for you and just give you a basic philosophy to understand this is a little framework. Follow this and you'll be golden the first thing you're gonna want to do. And this comes in the outline in stage, you're gonna structure your main paragraphs by topic or theme or experience. Okay, So there's gonna be let's just say you have three main paragraphs Are you going to enjoy? And then you go three paragraphs on a conclusion and actually personal saying them. So if you have three paragraphs, you're gonna have three points. Three things you want to talk about that a linked They're linked in the sense that it's all about what subjects you're gonna be studying on their linked in the sense that it's all about you and who you are. Andi. They also might be linked in other ways. They might be linked chronologically. So if you're going down the experience route, you want three anecdotes or three experiences that taught you a lesson, you might go chronologically. So the first paragraph would be about on experience when you're very young. Something that left an impression that has stuck with you. Next one might be something closer to the age you are now on. Do you know another dramatic event a bit closer to the age you are now or something that's happening in your life right now? So three main things you've already done. The culling, the excavation. You've already got a load of things you could choose from. Nature's gonna choose the three ones that stand out the most. Now, with each main paragraph, all you gotta do is follow the formula. I keep harping on about, and that is point. Example explanation. You're just gonna pay all of your work. So you've got your three killer points. He's a killer Paragraphs. And your structure. It point. Example Explanation. Sentence one. What's your point? Sentenced to What's an example? Sentence three, maybe sentence full harp on about it. Keep going on about it. Elaborate. Expand. Explain. Okay, So what we're gonna do now, we're gonna take that fictional candidate again, The one who's studying business of some sort, and he's studying abroad, and we're gonna see we're gonna see, um a paragraph from this person. We'll see a point in example. Explanation. All right, So your point is your first sentence on this is your introduction sentence. So, like, you have a main introduction, each paragraph, the first sentence is an introduction to that paragraph. Not only does it introduce what you're about to talk about and say the point, you really want one main point anyway, but it's also gonna link to what's come before in a little way. Okay, so what's your point? And you need to say exactly what you're gonna talk about, and it needs to be relevant to everything is a whole, particularly what came before. So let's look, at example, Okay? The first time I discovered the importance of cultivating a global mindset, it was when my father let me sit in on one of his international business meetings. So what's the point here? Okay, this person wants to talk about the importance off a global mindset, and this person has set themselves up to given example. In fact, there actually is an example in the point, but there'll be a further example and an elaboration, so we know we're about to hear a little story about this person when they were young sitting in on a business meeting. OK, so it sets up, there's little hook and you want to read along naturally. But the main thing is, we know the point. This person's gonna talk about global mindset. And if you remember the introduction, this is the same person that's talking about Buddhism on the same person. You know that they were blessed and stuff like that. Yours will be different. Remember, whatever your persona is, you're gonna that's gonna be a threat that is gonna be linked throughout the entirety of the personal savings. Little tip. If you ever. If you ever find yourself wondering if a first sentence is good or no, just sit back and ask yourself most appointed. If you can't answer that, it's no good. Sentence might sound nice, but it's not good sentence for our purposes here. So this person sits back and they like it is a good This is good, you know, sentence. What's the point of it? Okay, it's about the global mindset. That's something I want to talk about. It has a point good sentence, even if it's not, you know, fantastically ruin. We want a point there. All right, I got. And remember, we're all storytellers here. Were ultimately telling a little story. So there's another point here setting up the story, sitting up a little story to come. OK, the point. Now we're gonna get into the example. We need to back up everything you say. All right, so you're gonna say something. You don't want to just leave it there. It has to be reinforced. Otherwise is point less. You almost don't have a point unless you can back it up. All right, So this fictional person says my father thought that seven years old was a good age to learn about business. I still remember the tension in the atmosphere. There were 10 business partners in the room, each from different parts of the world, each stinking off coffee and cigarettes. And fatigue and frustration clung to every word and movement. The Chinese partners and the Thai partners were pulling out of the business. All right, so your example should paint a picture. There's a little movie going on here. All right? Can you see the boy at seven years old? He's sitting in the room. There's a lot of words evoke sensory impressions here. So you got smell coffee secrets. Everyone knows what that smells like. Evokes an emotion, the fatigue and frustration. Or you know what it's like to be fatigued and frustrated. You can see the people in the room and then very definitive image because it's actually happened to this person. You got the Chinese and you got the tire. So you and you got this seven year old and you got that That so your example? Just like with your point, the main thing to remember is have a point. Basically, like you're going to say, This is what I'm gonna talk about when it comes to example bit paint a picture. There's a little movie, a little picture going on on Do you want? It's to be clear on appeal to multiple senses on DSO. A little thing to remember when you're telling a story. The main driving force off a story His tension on the intention needs a resolution So great stories are all about tension or conflict. Obstacle problem. Okay, how do we overcome that? I can overcome that, but now is a bigger one. And then there's another one So every time you set up something a conflict that needs a resolution, people gonna naturally want to read on because they want to know how it ends. If you want to be persuasive, you have to elicit curiosity, okay, that Chinese partners and the Thai partners are pulling out of the business. What's gonna happen? Right? So that's not good. We want to know more now the explanation point. This is where we're gonna provide a little bit of relief from the tension. So you get your point. This is what you're talking about. Here's an example. And some tension and a nice little story. How are we going to resolve it? Here's the question. What's gonna happen to the partners? Where is the answer? Where's the resolution? So I think the best form for relief to take is a lesson. Learned it so personal statements. You haven't probably done too much in your life, so but you've probably learned quite a bit. So what lesson have you learned from this experience? How is it propels you into what you want to study Now? What did you learn from the example that made you who you are today? Okay, so follow along with this little fake personal. I sensed even at that young age that this was not a disagreement about money. This was a clash of cultures. Insensitivity had led to an unwillingness to collaborate any further. At that moment, I knew that if we are to succeed in today's global world, we must never assume that our cultures viewpoint is the correct one. I believe this event to be the catalyst for my desire to understand other cultures. So this is where the paragraph would end. The writer has learned a lesson on day are also hinting towards the next paragraph as well . Everything's tied up neatly, but still begs the question. So what was the point of the whole paragraph to talk about? Global mindset? Onda. We can see here, you know, after you've gone through the example, it's been wrapped up a little bit. So let's talk about culture and then brings it back to that, their their self as well. So this was the catalyst. This was the driving force. This is what made me have a desire to understand other cultures. And then, yes, left on a little a little note that makes you wanna learn more? You know, you want to know a little bit more. Okay, so obviously yours is going to look very different, but only in content. I don't want you to reinvent the wheel. Here, Follow this to the letter point Example Explanation. Make your point very obvious. Give an example that paints a picture little movie in your head and then explain more. Set up some tension in the example and and provide relief. Tie it all together and then an end on a little hint of what's to come. Now, have a good think. Look back at your the three anecdotes or experiences or thoughts that you want to compose your main paragraphs and start thinking about how you gonna outline and for me, what I would just do. I would get a piece of paper anecdote one or, you know, facet one of the personal statement right out a little code, whatever this is such and such. And then just put point example explosion. You're gonna fill it in. You're gonna fill in that point. What's the point? Filling the example. We'll see example fill in the explanation. How you gonna expect and do that for each one, as long as you stay close to point. Example explanation. You're on the right tracks. It's only when you get kind of far away from it that everything goes crazy and you start freaking out. So time to pee, all of your work. And then what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna see you after you've done that for the conclusion module on. We're going to look at some example conclusions so you can write your conclusion.
10. How to write a conclusion: so some principles to keep in mind for your conclusion. All right. So, firstly, by the time you reach your conclusion, the reader should feel like they went on a little journey. So a good formula, as we've already kind of looked at for doing this is to mix different times in the narrative of your story. So that's why I like the chronological approach. That's why I like, you know, doing something like an extended metaphor. You could even overtly compare everything to a journey that you're on. Or you could just make sure that the anecdotes or the impressions that you hit upon are kind of staggered over your lifetime. Basically, what you could do is you know, when you begin your personal statement, you could begin by looking to the future and commenting on the present. And then as you progress through the personal statement, you work your way up from childhood until the present day. Okay, so if you want to be formulaic about it on, do you want to take the guesswork out of it again? Don't overcomplicate things, just, you know, if you're lacking ideas of how to set out your structure and stuff do that, you know? Is there something that you can pick an impressionable event from your childhood? Is there one from a bit later on? Is the one closer to today or that happened really recently and order them in a certain way . That makes it feel like the person has kind of grown up with you. Perhaps that's an idea. So by the time you reach your conclusion, you could look to the future again. So, like you might have an introduction that, you know, states where you want to go. My ambition is this. It's that and it's been this way ever since. This you've gone back to the past and then we're gonna time travel again and the conclusion is gonna end. Look into the future. So a good conclusion also wraps up everything but doesn't simply repeat what was said in the introduction. We'll look at some examples. You can see that in action. That's the best way to see it. But really again, if you want. If you want me to be prescriptive about this, I would say end with a vision. Okay? I want this. I hopes to achieve this. My passion is it's my dream. Is this end with something grand? Okay, though small ambitions here you might have small ambitions, and that's absolutely fine. But let's try and make it grand or at least seem grand. Something that's exciting, something that's vivid. Okay, another thing you can do as well as ending with a vision. You can state what you've learned. What have you learned so far about your topic? About yourself, about you in this field state what you've learned and state where you see yourself going. Okay, so there's a theme here. Okay, It's all about what you've learned from where you're going. So the conclusion is future oriented. That should give you a good rule of thumb for how you gonna end there We're gonna talk about So let's look at an example, right? We followed this person all the way through. We looked at the introduction, and we looked at some example paragraph. So let's look at this business students example. Conclusion. As I look back over the formative events in my past, I find myself invigorated and compelled to take action. Many processes were involved in contributing to my decision to study business, but ultimately my motivation is always linked toe. One strong belief. Business is the art of providing value to humanity. If I can help just one person, I will be happy to see what this fictional person's done here. All right there, looking back over their events. Andi, if you remember the introduction, this person actually did talk about the formative events in their childhood, their early years, using the same phrase again as a call back. And, you know, you might want to do a little callbacks to make it seem more needs. Okay, so again, we're not saying exactly what was said in the introduction. It's different. But if you can use language very similar to stuff that you've already used, it fell. It feels mawr cohesive. Everything feels like a unit, like a nice, stable whole. All right, so look back for phrases or imagery that you've employed throughout your work, getting there again in the conclusion, especially if they're powerful, especially if you did use them. They're the beginning, so he's looking back over the past. But now it's not going to stay in the past anymore. This person is compelled to take action, so it's forward looking, springing okay, we're springing from the past into the future here. Many processes were involved in contributing to my decision to study business again looking back at the past again. But my motivations linked to this again, we're going to be very strong here. You can make your point. What is your motivation? Boom Blanket statement. Very strong. If you have a like something, that sounds like a proverb or a maxim. Something, you know, like a philosophy about your life. What? You know what your subjects will about, and you can distill it into one sentence. Save that powerful sentence we end. So business is the art of providing value to humanity. It sure it's pithy. It's strong. Do you have something for your subject that is similar? To be honest, you could probably nick something similar to this. I'm not saying you should, but, you know, you could say English literature is the art of providing value to humanity. Music is the are off providing value to humanity, you know. But you're gonna tweak it. You're gonna put your own spin on that if you want, and then the kick up. If I can help just one person, I will be happy that the final word like the final word in the personal sailing happy. So that's that evokes an emotional response. You want to look at what what word you end on, and are you happy with the impression that your final word gives off? So let's look at some points to keep in mind. And then we're gonna look at some examples by the time you reach the conclusion the reader wants to feel. By the time he reached a conclusion, the reader should feel like they went on a little journey. Mix different times in the narrative of the story. Begin by looking to the future and commenting on the present. Then, as you progress through your personal statement, you're gonna work your way up from childhood to the present day. When you reach the conclusion, you can once again look to the future. A good conclusion wraps everything up but doesn't simply repeat well stated in the introduction and with a vision end in a compelling way. We can do that, like with a probable maximum type quote. Make a call back to something interesting you mentioned in your statement and state what you've learned. State where you see yourself going, you remember anything about how to write a conclusion. It's about stating what you've learned state and where you see yourself guy. So let's look at how a successful medicine applicant again Oxford University concludes their personal thing. I know that medicine is not a 9 to 5 job and is by no means the glamorous source of easy money is often perceived to be. I understand the hours are long and potentially antisocial and that the career could be physically exhausted and emotionally draining. It is apparent that becoming a medic will involve inherent sacrifice. However, medicine is also a deeply gratifying and fascinating career path. I want to be a medic because my passion and aptitude is foremost scientific. And to me five or six years more formal education, followed by a lifetime of further it learning sounds like a stimulating career option and, thankfully, a far cry from the monotony some jobs pose. Nevertheless, as an intrinsically social person, I would relish a career requiring the development of strong empathic relationships with patients. To crucially, I know I have the enthusiasm capacity for hard work on the open and enquiring mind needed to succeed in such a fulfilling vocation. So look, this person is thinking back over where they've come from. They going back over, the lessons learned, I know it's gonna be this. I know it's gonna be this, but their forward looking I know it's gonna be five or six years. Andi. They can envision their future like they don't want a future of monotony. They don't want toe office job or something like that. They want this and then they start. They started hitting you with their persona intrinsically social person. There's they wanted form empathic relationships with their patients on Then towards the end , they just they cram in along these words that are just fantastic enthusiasm, hard work, open enquiring mind on. Do you know? Let's look at how they ended Vocation, right? So that's a that's a very evocative word it's about It's like a career that you just born to do. Andi. So ending on the word vocation. That's nice, especially for medicine, because the final impression that the reader's gonna have is this is someone who was born to do this subject. All right, so let's look at how a successful applicant to study history concluded. My passions are not just limited to academia, however, as outside, I am a great lover of music, whether this be listening to a plane guitar for me, music and history are intertwined as they both offer inspiration to many and act as a challenge as well as with history. Music is crafted slowly over time, showing the desire and passion to succeed in something which you love. Armed with a passion for history, I happily anticipate spending the next few years of my life immersed in as many aspects of history as possible, thereby further in my own understanding of the past and how is crafted the world we live in today. So we're just looking at the conclusion here. We don't really know what this person's been talking about in their personal statement, but, you know, we can see that they are trying to set themselves apart here by bringing in the music motif on bond. What's cool is once again you can see them envisioning their future. There's a vision here they want. They're talking about how they anticipate spending the next few years. Is there gonna be immersed in as many aspects of history as possible is compelling because they have taken another subject in, and they've merged it with subject. They do want to go and study. They demonstrated its on a lot of thinking about this subject on the other, like, kind of related subjects. Yeah, ultimately, they're just and in on the ending on that vision. So before you write your conclusion, I'm gonna ask you to answer some questions. What lessons have you learned? Look back over the different points that you're gonna hit on inhumane paragraphs. What they told you, Where do you see yourself going? That's the big thing. Answer that question in the conclusion and it will be compelling. So best of luck with that on do what we're gonna do next is going to look at how to idiot your personal state.
11. How to edit: Okay, so you put a little hard work in, and now it's time Teoh edit your personal statement, right? So anything. It's a really, really important part off the whole writing process because, you know, great writers at it. Hemingway used to say something to the effect off. For every page of gold, there's 100 pages of ship. Basically, a lot of stuff ends up in the trash can on bond rewrite in taking things out, putting things in, trying to find a better turn of phrase, playing with the order of things. This is all stuff that you gonna do in the editing process. But once you got some big old block, some big old mess, then you know, personally, I find editing really fun because you've got something to play with. And it's like sculpting almost like you, just chipping away to make it better and better and better. And with each edit, it will get better on you can see it get better and go in a good direction and stuff. So I've always found that really fulfilling personally. Okay, so let's look into some top tips for how to edit a personal statement. Give your statement a cooling off period. All right, this is very important. Once you've done the first draft and you've gone through and you've got a happy with where the shape is going and what you've included, you now have permission, Teoh not really do anything or even think about it at all. And this is why I recommended. In the beginning of the course, you should try and set aside as much time as possible so that if you got a few weeks to play with, that's brilliant. So leaving your statement to the last moment isn't so great because well, firstly, you don't have a lot of dreams, cycles to play with, and a lot of thoughts The process. You don't have a lot of time to experiment and think and really get creative. But you also don't have. I like a nice cooling off period that you can give yourself. You know, the importance of this is your too close to your personal statement. At this point, you can't even see it properly. Eso if you can put a few days in between the statement even thinking about it and then editing it would be perfect, because if you just start editing your personal statement immediately. There's gonna be like glaring errors and things that shouldn't be in there or clunky things that you'll just miss. So when you give yourself a bit of a cooling off period, you're gonna come back to your person statement with some fresh eyes on it, make all the difference. So if you finish writing the first draft of your personal statement on Friday, go enjoy your weekend and chill out. Don't do anything related. It's your personal statement until Monday. All right, this is obvious, but we need to say it on. Do you need to do it? Eliminate all spelling and grammar mistakes? And that means all you personal same. It's not very big you There shouldn't be any excuse for a single grammatical or spelling mistake. Onda Thes days. It's easier than ever to do that. You can. Firstly, you can use a program like Graham early that will help pick up on that sort of thing. Normal spellchecker. But I would also recommend you do two things that will help you catch. That one is to really allowed on. The other is to print it out. So I'm assuming you do in the draft on the computer, because that's quite almost quite standard. But you'll see errors and stuff very easily. If you print out, get a pen on circle, things that shouldn't be there, cross out things that shouldn't be there. Draw lines, hours. The doodles get messy again. Okay, Philip, with notes you're gonna read it allows you can read it aloud to yourself several times to try and hear the musicality of it on. Then you're going toe. Also be faced with anything that just shouldn't be there. Or you might come up with new ideas like Oh, okay. Actually, it's more natural if I talk about this now or this. That only happens when you start reading aloud. Another top tip for the editing process is to get your friends, family and even your teachers involved. All right, So when I wrote my personal saving Yep. I showed it. Teoh, think two or three of my best friends who were also right in their personal statements, different subjects, which, actually that really does help. Because even though you're not really competing with anybody else, you're just trying to put you across. There is some sort of unconscious bias again in the same subject that comes out. I think so, if you can. If you have a friend who is in a different subject background, that could be very helpful. Family. If you've got good family, people who want Teoh want the best for you, then bugger there like, you know, bug them with it and get their input and teachers teachers a great Okay. So, like, really most of the year, there's no there's not too many people bugging their teachers for advice or extra education stuff like that. But then come personal statement right in time. Everybody is getting a bit cheeky and trying to get their teachers input. Eso you might have to be a bit sweetened them up. Whatever. You might give him a little on a chocolate bar or something, but, um, yeah, what? You're gonna get your impression with fresh eyes, and then you're going to get the impression that you give off to other people. My rule is if more than one person has commented on something, you know something is not good or not working and unfavorable, then you give some serious thought to change in that If It's just one person you can think about, whether it change the oil or not. But if more than one person picks up on something that's incongruity or weed or shouldn't be there, yes, change it. But if there's just one person who likes something, keep that in like someone, cause I really like to mention that. Keep that, you know, what you're gonna do is you're gonna spend more time with your personal statement. So why, I'd suggest is you wake up with the printed copy on reading in the morning. Think about as you go about about your day, glances over. We go to bed. Andi. If you can do that, the more days in which you can do that the better. Because time brings suggestions. So more time about another thing you want to do is make sure you're no using cliches. Okay, so Cliche is a saying or a phrase that has been used so many times. It doesn't even have any meaning anymore. It was a piece of cake. She was a diamond in the rough. I went bananas. The kids were falling head over heels in love. The reason you want to shy away from cliches or just avoid them altogether. Is it? Just waters down your message of what was done, who you are, and it makes you less unique. You just blend in. All right, So if you're using a cliche, cut it out. But then also, you can figure out why you're using it. Are you using it because you're not sure about your own words and then have a think like, Is there a way I can say this in a more unique way? Or is there a way you could just not say it all? Because cliches could be quite damaging to your right and you want to stand out and be unique cliches and unique I can another thing when you're going through and you'll, you know, looking for spelling mistakes. Grammar stakes. Also be on the lookout for where you've used the passive voice. Okay, the ball was hit by the boy. You want to change that, too? Active voice. The boy hit the ball. All right, so this is gonna immediately make your right and more powerful, and that's a good hack to just immediately tightened everything up is make as many things active as possible. Ultimately, though, if I had to give you one philosophy, one little tip that works really well when it comes to editing. Because, really, there's so many things you can change when it comes to editing. And it's so personal, it's so dependent on what you've written, like what you need to edit is gonna be so different from what someone else needs to edit. But we kind of already know what needs to go and what should stay. But we're not very good at seeing that, like, logically, consciously, But you do know it on the tip. I would give you to access what you already know, but you might not want to admit is this pretends you get $100 or £100 for any word you can remove? That still keeps the meaning. All right, I got this right in tip from Scott Adams, who is a fantastic writer. He's very good at teaching, actually, how to be a good writer. Okay, so just imagine you're going through and, you know, personal statement isn't that long. You can really do this with every word that you can be. You can put it right under a microscope and just look and say, Hey, can I remove this word? Would I rather keep this word in or would I rather get $100? Obviously, like this is, you know, is a bit jokey, like, you know, gonna just remove everything, every single word in a postal statement. Be rich like you want to act like the postal center is extremely precious and all the words of very precious. However, there are some words in there which you can get rid off. It will keep the meeting. Nothing will be altered. In fact, it's gonna be even tighter, more crisp, if you can get rid of it. Well, this word you're deliberating over or should I take out my leave in whatever well would you want to live in Or do you want $100 to take you out? And that's a guiding philosophy that will end up making your final piece of work very smooth and very well written on those tips to keep in mind when it comes to editing your personal statement,
12. Resources: So we've come to the end of our little journey together. I hope that this has being helpful. Guidance for you, Right? In your personal statement on, I really hope that you have something that you're proud off. You feel less anxious and you feel like you're going in the right direction. Now, before we say goodbye, I've got a few resources that I would recommend for you just make things a little bit more easy for you. If you want to learn about studying and, like good, effective study techniques, you can go. Teoh Benjamin, McEvoy dot com forward slash study If you would like something personal, something more tailored to you and you'd like some concrete advice about your personal statement Well, you know, this course had to be quite general because I don't know what subjects are even going for. I don't know what your ambition is. I don't know you as a person or your aim is. But if you've got your personal statement and you're still thinking this could I could use some advice about this. Well, I do. Some consults on. You can access that by going Teoh Benjamin back way dot com Forward slash consults on. You can book a session with May. If you haven't already had enough of me, you could also check out. My approved resource is there will be a lot off cold little things there on if you If you book fan and I have a Little Book Club newsletter that goes out roughly once a month that you might be interested in other stuff you can check out. There's a great book called Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark. There's so much stuff that I couldn't go into massive depth in this course, which is a real shame. But I followed kind of like the Pareto principle, the 80 20 rule. So this course is like 80% to get you. Yeah, the results that you want. If you want to get into the weeds a little, and you want to learn more about writing effectively, that's a great book. You can also check out this link that but here at stewed ensure dot com, which has some examples of personal statements for Oxford University again, you don't want to get too bogged down with reading examples, but you might find that useful. You can also follow this link Teoh Oxford University website that will show you the anatomy of a personal statement, which might be quite interesting seeing how it breaks down and what thoughts go through the readers head when they're reading a personal statement. Other than that, I really wish you the best of luck. It's This is a very difficult time in your life. You probably quite stressed and anxious, but it's also very exciting. Time on, There's a lot of possibility ahead of you, So I really hope that you found something that you're passionate about on that you you don't take the choice to go into university lightly because at least in England is very, very expensive to spend a few years of university and you can get into a lot of debt for it . So what I would say is, make sure you are absolutely passionate. You know what you're going to go for on you. You know, you might be a bit apprehensive of it, scared, but ultimately you're excited about the way your life is gonna go. Don't be too daunted. I really hope that I've been able to help you put your best foot forward in in doing so. I wish you all the best. And I'd like to thank you deeply, truly from the bottom of my heart for taking this class with me. Andi, hopefully see you again soon. Good luck.